Tony Walker has a longish piece on Bill Shorten in the weekend AFR.

For me Bill Shorten has covered pretty much all of the things that are wrong with Labor.   Only Bill doesn't see them as faults, he presents them as virtues.

“The way for us to win the next election – and it is a general formula – is to be the party that offers hope and optimism,’’ Shorten says. “We have to give people an affirmative reason to vote for us, not just a reason that we’re not the other side.

“That applies in this election, but I also think it applies for the next 20 years. Who’s got a better vision for the future.’’

Beautiful.   The all-care, no-responsibility cop-out.   It's like an underperforming salesman called in to review his lousy sales numbers - "but boss, next year will be magnificent".    Bill, you have to be able to do things,to achieve, to manage, to deliver.   An ad agency can create what you've set out as the election winning formula - and an ad-agency bears a striking resemblance to what's left of Labor.   All sizzle, no steak.

I ask Shorten what qualities might be expected of a leader of the Labor Party given the mixed reviews he had received from some of his colleagues who question his trustworthiness.

“This is not a job application, by the way,’’ he says. “But leadership is the ability to take people where they don’t always want to go. Leadership is the ability to bring people together. Leadership is having a long view. Leadership is being able to explain where people fit in the change process.’’

I think Bill has missed a fair bit in the make up of truly great leadership.   Honesty, track record, always delivers, word is bond, care for the troops first, impeccable integrity, no hint of ulterior motives, personal ego under control, never ask someone to do what I wouldn't do and I could go on for pages.

When Bill was asked about leadership, his first comment was, "Leadership is the ability to take people where they don’t always want to go."   That sounds like conmanship to me.   And it's the hallmark of the current Federal Labor Ministry. "Once we get in, we'll change it all", Peter Garrett.

On Labor's factions:

“Factionalism functions both positively and negatively,’’ he says. “Organising around ideas is inevitable, especially in the Labor Party which is made up of people who all have ideas about change. But when you start binding people on ideas you have probably gone too far.’’

I think Bill misses the point.   Modern Labor is entirely focussed on factions, unions, allegiances, mates, dirt files and indulgences and it's the Labor factions that drive that.   Seriously, when was the last time you heard of a Labor faction that was in the business of developing ideas?

Bill was asked about reforming a clearly broken Labor Party, what were his ideas?   My read of his answer below is,  yes, we need to reform, but not until I've exhausted my personal advantages from the mates I have in place.

“First, before the next election tempting as it might be to have a conversation about ourselves we’re not going to,’’ he says. “Let us have a conversation about what we’re going to do for Australia and Australians.

“But I do accept in the medium term we need to revisit how we make decisions, how we select candidates and how we involve people with ideas.’’

Tempting as it might be to take a long hard look at ourselves, the leaders like Swan, Gillard et al who have taken Australia into this terrible mess, tempting as it might be to assess our own performance, we're not going to do that.   You're not going to do that?

Tony gave Bill another chance to show that he had seriously thought about where Labor has gone wrong, what it needed to fix, how it could tranform itself.  Tony's question and Bill's answer are below:

Why do you think you’re so much on the nose?

“I think the opposition has been effective,’’ he says. “But in the past two and a bit years it’s been a phantom race. There’s only been one horse in the race. That’s changed. With six months to go there’s the Coalition and us.’’

Why is Labor on the nose? Because of the coalition not Labor's mistakes.  I come back to the leadership questions Bill.   No one with any sense will follow you because you sound like a bull artist.   I don't want to be lied to and I personally won't follow a leader who is in that habit.

It really is terribly sad for Australia to see this wanton incompetence as the best Labor can put forward.